World Trade Center DVD Review

There are certain dangers about making a film based on a tragedy that is still fresh, like the 2001 terrorist attacks. My biggest worry when sitting down to watch this film was the fact that the actual images from that day are still implanted in my brain, and consequently if the effects in the film looked too different, it would register as false. While there are moments that are obviously digitally created, Oliver Stone’s World Trade Center is successful because it stays intimately close to characters. There is no more shown than what the characters we are following know, and these characters are based on the real men and women going through the tragedy. United 93 was able to avoid the same problem by staying contained in the airplane for the whole film, never straying to show us what is going on in the rest of the world. World Trade Center is one of Stone’s most focused films in years, staying trained on the officers who become trapped upon the collapse of the first building.

The true story follows John McLaughlin and Will Jimeno (Nicolas Cage and Michael Pena), two New York City Port Authority policemen who become trapped in the rubble. As they lay pinned and hidden beneath twenty feet of rubble, their wives (Maria Bello and Maggie Gyllenhaal) wait to find out what happened to their husbands.

World Trade Center is quite brilliant in its choice of stories to tell. They manage to capture the sheer helplessness of the day as well as the humanity that followed. There are numerous fantastic actors who are shadowed or covered in grime for nearly the entire film, making them all but unrecognizable. There are no flashy entrances or announcements of a star’s presence in the film, but instead they come into the story and often fade out again. The focus remains on a single task, and the more intimate the film the easier it is to see the tragedy of the day.

The 2-Disc Commemorative Edition stays respectfully away from any flashy featurettes. There is plenty of material to give us Oliver Stone’s insight, including commentary, Q&A, and a conversation in which he talks about his experiences in New York. There are also some deleted scenes and two featurettes about the making of the film. One covers the general production while the other focuses on the recreation of ground zero. The best special features on the disc are those which concern themselves with the real men that the film is inspired by. There is an extensive documentary about the two officers, Jimeno and McLaughlin, and a commentary track with Jimeno and a few of the rescuers.